# Overview

## Introduction to IDA floating licenses

Floating licenses allow organizations with multiple IDA users to install IDA across many different machines while limiting the number of concurrent IDA active sessions. One floating license (or one floating license seat, if multiple seats are available) permits one concurrent use of IDA Pro. The licenses are managed by a Hex-Rays license server.

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To use floating licenses, IDA needs to maintain a permanent connection to your organization's license server, but you can borrow licenses to work offline.
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Users don't need to store license files locally on their machines while using floating licenses.

### One server, different IDA licenses

You can have several IDA Pro licenses available on the same license server, each with a different set of decompilers assigned.\
You can switch between those licenses depending on your needs (e.g., the architecture of the file you're working on).

### Seats and seat allocation

A "seat" represents an active session of IDA for the user+machine pair.\
If your IDA Pro license has 3 seats available, it means that up to 3 different users or machines can run IDA at the same time.\
When you open IDA, the License Manager displays all available licenses and their number of seats.\
One seat is taken (checked out) from the pool when you start working with a file in IDA.\
When you close IDA, the seat is released back to the pool for others to use.

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When you run multiple instances of IDA on the same computer, only one seat is used up from the license pool on the server.
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### License check-out

Checking out the license allows the user to work with IDA (maintaining an active IDA session), while keeping a connection to the license server. IDA Pro checks out a license when launched and returns it when closed.

### License borrowing

Borrowing allows the user to check out the license for a fixed period and work offline (without connection to the license server). At the end of the borrow period, the license is released automatically by the server and returned to the common license pool.